


Lies the Rebels Told Us

by aphotic-serendipity (cataclysm_of_the_masses)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Child Abandonment, Cigarettes, Drug Addiction, Gen, Good Parent Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Good Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Jschlatt is Toby Smith | Tubbo's Parent, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Parental Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson is Not Technoblade's Parent (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson is Tommyinnit's Parent, Phil Watson is Wilbur Soot's Parent, Poverty, Ram Hybrid Toby Smith | Tubbo, Sheep Hybrid Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Shoplifting, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), schlatt is trying his best
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 16:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30058275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cataclysm_of_the_masses/pseuds/aphotic-serendipity
Summary: Years and years down the line, the rebels tell a story, the story of how they lost and won back their country only for it to slip through their fingers once more and crumble upon its ashes. But they don't tell you that the story's all wrong, that they've lied to themselves over and over again, deluded themselves into seeing only what they wanted to.What if they told the story of what really happened instead?NOTE: The first chapter can be taken as a standalone oneshot. Tags updated with fic.
Relationships: Jschlatt & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Jschlatt & Toby Smith | Tubbo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Lies the Rebels Told Us

**Author's Note:**

> Schlatt is seventeen when his world falls apart.
> 
> TW: Dependence/addiction, poverty/lack of food, shoplifting, child abandonment, suicide attempt, homophobia (f-slur used).
> 
> Note: I'm absolutely terrible at warnings and tags. If there's anything I missed, please inform me and I'll update accordingly. And if you pick up what I'm laying down, tell me!
> 
> Also, I haven't added the minor characters' tags yet - if they haven't spoken, I don't want to consider them a character so people searching for those characters' content won't be disappointed. But expect to see them! Chekhov's Gun must go off, after all.

Schlatt is seventeen when his world falls apart.

He's busy drumming his pencil on his notebook in macroeconomics, staring at the board and not taking notes. He never takes notes. He doesn't need them.

When he was young, he'd been called a prodigy, a genius, a child star. Now that he's older, he's being forced into the square hole everyone expects him to fit, a round peg cutting off the arcs of his interests, his friends, his emotions, and his secrets at perfect ninety-degree angles to squeeze in just so. Schlatt is nothing; this he knows. He is nothing except a legacy to uphold and college applications stacked floor to ceiling.

If he had known, he would've set fire to the papers limiting his life to six hundred words or less and laid down to sleep one last time in the warmth of broken dreams. Or maybe he wouldn't have even tried, would have saved the nickels and dimes on the copier. It could've given him three nights of going to bed not hungry if he played his cards right.

The principal peeks into the economics classroom, a critical eye sweeping around like a cat looking for easy prey, taking inventory of how many students seemed to be awake versus asleep. He crosses the room to speak to the teacher; they huddle behind the desk like a Bond movie crossed with a football team. After a few minutes, or days (it's hard to tell), they separate, the principal heading to the door. As he gets there, he spins on his heel. "Mr. Schlatt, can you follow me?"

Schlatt takes the moment standing up to try to figure out what he fucked up this time. He sets his jaw, grits his teeth, takes a step forward.

"You might want to take your books," the principal advises, his tone a half step lower and a half decibel softer, imperceptible to all but those actively looking for it.

Oh  _ fuck, _ it's bad. Schlatt's eyes dart around the room, just as the principal's did before, but his stare is erratic, a mouse with his back to the wall. He settles on snatching his backpack from his chair, unceremoniously shoving his notebook inside, and slinging it onto his left shoulder before following the principal out the door. Even before it closes, he can hear the whispers of his fellow students, wondering, contending, scheming behind his back.

Schlatt pulls the strap on his shoulder just a little bit closer as the door clicks shut.

He doesn't remember the hallways ever being this long before. As they walk, he feels his strides covering less and less distance until he's walking through quicksand, dragged back by every particle of silica in existence. Two girls pass them, moving at the speed of light, and the quiet, sad glances they give him seem to amplify in sound until the echoes of pity bounce off the walls, accelerating as they ricochet. If there was one thing he hated, it was pity.

They pass by the main doors and Schlatt lifts his head to confirm the red and blue lighting his peripherals. His heart races once more as he desperately tries to piece two and two together but ends up with five. What did they want from him? Instinctively, he shoves his hand deep into the pocket of his oversized blazer; fishing through the spare pens, '99 doubled die penny, small notepad, and Swiss Army Knife, his fingers close around a pack of cigarettes, half-smoked. Securing his grip, he discreetly slides the box out, then drops it into a trash can standing sentinel in the middle of the hallway, pressed up against the wall. Just in case.

They round the corner to the principal's office, the sand climbing up Schlatt's legs until he can barely bend his knees. The principal opens the door for the student as he hauls himself inside, trying to force some sense through the situation. Two police officers stand on the other side of the table, flanking the principal's chair. One's leaner, taller, with a shitty mustache, while the other's shorter, clean-shaven, and probably needs to skip the Sunday brunch bar. Schlatt doesn't deign to look at the nametags as he throws himself onto a plastic chair opposite the two.

Abbott begins the interrogation as Costello tries to fix their captive with a "bad cop" gaze that ends up looking more or less like a kicked puppy.

"Do you know this woman?" Abbott slides a photograph across the table. It's somewhat recent, of a girl, probably grazing eighteen, dressed to the nines in a snappy orange suit with a plaque stating her name and number on a striped background. Her expression is dead, staring past the camera, her mouth in a deadset line. Schlatt struggles to place her - she exudes the air of a smoker, but one who'd fucked around for too long and found herself wanting a harder hit.

Not that he'd know anything about that. He only goes through two packs a week. Three, if it's particularly shit. He can drop it at any time, he's not  _ addicted _ or any long words like that, not like she is. No, definitely not. He just… likes the taste. Yeah.

He looks up, then down again, blinking once, twice, until the picture focuses back into his vision. She's familiar, he knows that much, but from where? Schlatt slides his fingers into the tufts of hair at the nape of his neck, just under where his horn, a mark of his ram-hybrid ancestry, curls in under his ear, rubbing back and forth a few times. "I can't say she rings any particular bell," he admits.

Abbott doesn't seem to like that answer very much - he nods a little too curtly, as if his neck were a rusty spring. Costello now speaks up. "This lady says she knows you," he explains. "Says she met you nine, ten months ago?"

As previously discussed, Schlatt isn't stupid. He fixes Costello with a blank gaze, maintaining eye contact. "I have no idea what you're talking about," he drawls out in a monotone, now knowing  _ exactly _ what they were talking about.

_ Mid-March. A girl so tripped up on the weird, almost-salty vodka they were serving that her head was barely screwed on. A boy chain-smoking on the balcony to try to screw his back. She cries in his arms, cries that the fucker left her high and dry like a waterfall, and if he gets his fun she gets hers. He stays silent, lets her have her way. It's as good a time as any. Besides, if he refuses, he's not going to live it down. He doesn't think of her, she doesn't think of him, but they think about the same person all the same, the same trails of kisses fluttering down their necks, for one a pipe dream and the other a distant reality. And when she passes out in the bathtub, he drapes a towel over her, locks the door, and climbs out through the window. He sits in the garden and sobs, curling into the rose beds as he tries not to admit to himself what he knows. _

Costello's too stupid to figure any of that out, so he looks to Abbott for any sort of cue. The taller policeman sighs. "Look, Schlatt - I'll call you Schlatt, okay? - this isn't easy for us, either."

He shrugs, leaning back into his chair. "I can tell, 'cause you've got the wrong guy," he quips before his brain catches up to his tongue.

Abbott nods; it's evident from the rubber-bandiness of this nod that he believes none of it. "Schlatt, would you be opposed to going somewhere with us?" he bargains. "It's not the station. You're not in trouble."

That's about as likely as kick-starting a dead horse. "Where, then?" he fires back.

"The hospital," the cop divulges. "There's someone you should see there."

Schlatt feels his world collapse around him, splinter into tiny glass shards and crystallize as a mosaic of echoes, arguments, fights, broken bottles, the perpetual smell of vinegar to drown out the distinct flavor of whiskey from his clothes.

The girl wouldn't be able to testify if her life depended on it. He's the furthest thing from indistinctive, though. He stares down at his hands, adding two and two again, still getting five. He's fucked, so thoroughly fucked it wasn't even funny. He should bail now, get out of these assholes' lines of sight and run 'cause his life depends on it.

He doesn't run. He merely lets his eyes wander the ceiling, taking inventory of the blotchy stains, then nods. "...Okay," he agrees. Schlatt's too young; he hasn't hardened up completely yet and he hasn't quite learned that you can't say anything to anybody, because if you do, they always turn it on you. So he allows Abbott and Costello to escort him to their car, puts his books on his lap in the backseat, watches the scenery beyond the window as they pull away like it's the only thing left for him to do, just watch the world pass him by.

The trees of Aedelis blend into one solid mass of green, then fall further and further apart into twigs sprouting from the ground. They eventually pull up to the hospital; the car door opens again. Schlatt stumbles out, bracing himself against the checkered frame to restore stability to his knees. Costello watches him as if he has the mental capability to understand. Abbott leads the way inside.

They walk past beds, beds with people learning to live and people learning to die, with people who hope and people who've given up hoping, with people here for a day and people here for years. They pass every stage of life, every skin tone, every species, from the angels to the devils, from the lovers to the haters, from those who do no wrong to those who do nothing but. Eventually, Abbott stops in front of a room with many cradles, letting the nurse escorting them open the door. They shuffle in and the police officer walks straight to the third bed down. He lifts the little occupant in his arms, then leans on the crib.

"I… thought you might want to see him."

Schlatt opens his mouth to protest, this kid isn't his, it  _ can't _ be, but then the baby turns to look at him and his heart breaks on the porcelain of the floor. Two tiny horns peek out from the delicate wisps of brown hair on his head; his ears fluff, twitching ever-so-slightly. But the most prominent feature on the little boy is his baby-blue eyes, wide and full of wonder and joy. They're not his, but the rest of him is almost identical.

"He's been in the hospital for the past two, three weeks," Abbott explains, rocking the baby back and forth slightly in his arms. "His mother… she's not ready for this. Even when she gets out. She's signed the papers for the father to get full custody, didn't even want to see the kid."

"Oh," Schlatt mumbles, looking first down to his feet, then back up at the child. How could she just leave him like this? He supposes he knows why, he's seen it before, but at the same time. "Does he… have a name?"

Costello, in the background, pipes in. "The nurses were calling him Turbo because of how fast he eats. A little kid came in and mispronounced it Tubbo, and now it's stuck."

"Tubbo." Schlatt tests it on his tongue. At the sound, the baby looks up to meet his gaze. And  _ God, _ it hurts.

Abbott exhales softly, smiling down at the child. "I understand if you still deny him, if you're not ready to take care of him," he notes. "His mother - "

"I can handle it," he decides, cutting the cop off. And not even five minutes ago, he would have turned away and told these guys to deal with this shit on their own. Something leaps up and lodges in his throat - this is  _ his _ son.  _ His son _ deserves the best life possible, not some shitty foster care runaround and not the same fucked-up existence he had.

Abbott and Costello exchange glances, then share a smile. "Do you want to hold him?" the tall one tests.

Schlatt pauses, then nods. He sticks his arms out, allowing Abbott to transfer the weight. Tubbo's heavier than he looks; he looks up at the new face, then reaches up to wrap his tiny fingers around the tip of his father's horn where it pokes out by his jawline. Carrying the little boy in his arms, he feels his heart melt once more. "Hey there, buddy," he murmurs, unable to stop the wide smile that breaches his resting scowl at the happy giggle he receives in reply. Schlatt closes his eyes, black as a starry night, and opens them to meet Tubbo's, blue as the midday skies.

He should be crying. He should be crying, cursing the world for the existence of this little shit that's going to fuck up his plans for college, for a good life, for an existence not spent scraping the bottom of the barrel for leftovers. He doesn't blame her for ditching the baby; it's what he should do, after all. Let someone else take care of him. It was easy for her, and she carried the kid. He just walked in today. But he can't  _ do _ it, can't bear to look him in the eyes and leave him like that. He knows he's not ready; hell, he knows he'll never  _ be _ ready. But he has to try, right?

Schlatt is nothing, in that moment; he is nothing and he is holding on to his everything. He'll spend late nights pumping gas or early mornings pumping coffee, flip the bird to all he's worked for, as long as it makes sure that Tubbo's going to have the best life Schlatt can give him. He'll die penniless but rich with joy, just as long as Tubbo's happy.

Schlatt doesn't go home that night. The police officers leave him with his son, and he sits there, perched on the edge of the crib, until the nurse tells him visitation hours are over and Tubbo's ready to go, just mark the papers down. He's never written his signature so fast.

So there they stand, with the stars lighting the pitch-black sky around them. Tubbo's sleeping softly, his tiny stomach expanding and contracting with each breath. Schlatt holds him closer than close as he curls over to try to stop his backpack from putting too much weight on him.

They can't go home; at least, they can't go back to where he used to live. He doesn't think his mother would take the news well. She'd been  _ livid _ when she found out about his "faggot phase", shattered bottles of whiskey cutting into his skin and  _ you're going to fucking hell, you piece of shit. _ (It wasn't a phase. If anything,  _ this _ was a phase, all of the  _ this _ that had ended him up here.) He supposes the news of a child would be a step up, but, knowing his luck and her intolerance, he'd get run out of the house for having a kid out of wedlock anyway, and with a regular human at that. Yeah, maybe he should try, should hope for a lucky break, but "you never know until you try" is the motto of naïve assholes who've had it too good all their lives. Schlatt doesn't have to try to know. It's like jumping off a bridge.

He walks a few paces, lets the streetlamps guide the way to a metal bench, which he slouches on, resting Tubbo comfortably in his lap before pulling his backpack off his shoulders and rummaging through its contents. He throws one textbook, then two, onto the grass. Not like he's going to need them now, not when the room they took up would better be filled by baby formula and sheep's milk. Dispersed between the sheets of his empty notebooks, he finds three hundred dollars he'd been caching and a half-smoked pack of cigarettes. He doesn't know what's worse: that he was planning for when he got kicked out or that he was planning for when he needed a hit.

Ah, fuck it. Schlatt reaches in his other pocket, pushing past his wallet (twenty dollars and forty-two cents, enough to get a meal but not enough to steal) to find his lighter. He sticks one end of the cigarette between his teeth and lights the other end, taking a long drag before exhaling, trying to blow as far away from the baby who's curled up against him as possible.

"Let's go, kid," he mumbles, zipping his backpack shut, sliding the lighter and cigarette pack back into his pockets, and pulling himself together again. He cautiously cradles Tubbo closer to his own beating heart, setting off. He can walk tonight, distance himself from this shit town as far as possible, then they can probably sleep on the sidewalk a few nights, as long as they're not in a place where the police could find them. Three hundred should be enough for a deposit on a shit studio apartment, and then he'll get some unskilled labor job, two if he has to, so he could pay the bills. Yeah. That should work, actually.

Even though he instinctively knows he's beyond fucked, that's he's straying dangerously close to the edge, Schlatt can't help but smile as they leave that dying town behind.

They fall into a familiar pattern - walk, stop when Tubbo gets squirmy so he can be taken care of, walk, maybe get the occasional hitchhike. Schlatt sleeps maybe two, three hours at a time. He roots in trash cans next to fast-food joints, salvages halves of hamburgers, or just plain goes hungry some nights. Anything to avoid using that down payment. It's the only thing he has left, the three hundred dollars and Tubbo. He's gotten uncomfortably used to going three days clean, then chain-smoking five cigarettes in a row when he thinks he can get away with it.

It takes them seven towns, two months, and over a hundred miles before they find a sucker who's renting apartments on the cheap. The slimeball (literally, he's at least half slime, the green shit drips off him) takes two-fifty for the deposit and expects two hundred a month. A construction project's hiring on the other side of town, so Schlatt signs up for the minimum wage job and blesses his lucky stars he's got  _ something _ . His budget teeters on the brink of falling irreparably into ruin, but it's the best he can do. Nobody's going to hire some seventeen-year-old who hasn't even finished high school.

He saves pennies every week in a small jar on the top shelf of the empty pantry and prays for nothing bad to happen. If there's any emergency, any medical bill,  _ anything, _ he's fucked. Tubbo watches the penny jar with wide eyes as the copper coins drip in, and his father caves, he always does, shaking the plastic container a few times with a weary grin as he looks over his shoulder to the child in the second hand bassinet, who smiles back at him. He doesn't know. He's lucky that way, that he doesn't need to.

Schlatt meets Philza on the construction site, sitting on a wooden beam ten feet off the ground at half past two in the morning as he unwraps the back half of a two-for-five sandwich deal. He doesn't expect it - it's not like he expects anything anymore, though. But when the man with the funny green-and-white-striped sun hat and the slightly oversized, dark grey wings flies up to Schlatt's customary snack spot and sits next to him, neither of them says a thing. It takes them a week for Philza to introduce himself, offering a hand to shake over the lunchbox he's brought to the midnight site. It takes Schlatt less than a second to return the gesture.

So they talk, then, during their lunch breaks, dangling their legs over the soon-to-be kitchen. Phil's the head electrician of the job, making sure the team puts the right wires in the right places so shit doesn't blow up. Schlatt makes a quarter of the money hammering nails into the beams so the houses stick together and 'cause he's not qualified to operate the cranes. Philza's got two children, a Wilbur and a Tommy, the latter's around Tubbo's age. He talks about the kids, about a blackout drunk night where he woke up in a fridge with a number scrawled on his wrist and when he sobered up enough to call it, the people on the other end were in extreme confusion as to why, precisely, he of all people was interested in adopting, but it'd look really fucking stupid to back out and so he jumped in and adopted Will for God knows what reason, and now recently he's adopted Tommy because - to be frank, Schlatt had lost interest at this point of his new friend's (was that the right word, friend?) rambling, having instead lit a cigarette, letting the tension in his shoulders and spine unfurl out with plumes of smoke.

Phil's lucky 'cause the neighbors' kid, Techno, likes the house and the people in it, so he hangs around often and can take care of the young one when he falls and he cries. Nobody's around when Tubbo cries at night, Schlatt reminds himself, biting his tongue on accident as he swallows the same egg sandwich that tastes like paper now. He wonders if Tubbo's learned to stop his tears, if anyone hears a sound, and does that mean he's even in pain, if nobody's around to validate it? Does he still wake up at night? From the pamphlets the nurses gave him at the hospital, he should be sleeping through the night now. But what if he  _ isn't? _ Schlatt has no way to know and it terrifies him.

His life follows a predictable pattern. He's got work from 10 PM to 6 AM, then he gets home, takes a quick shower, and falls onto the cushions on the floor he likes to call a couch when he's feeling delusional. He wakes up in two hours or three, when Tubbo does, and they play together for a little bit before starting the day. Schlatt's finished the container of formula and they've moved on to more solid food, meaning trips to the grocery store for weird-looking fresh produce on promotion that gets made in the gently-used flea market slow cooker and served up to a child who's learned not to be picky.

"Look, kid," Schlatt had mumbled, chewing on the end of an unlit cigarette as he sat on the floor next to his son, who'd been poking the spinach on his plastic plate with distaste, "There's nothing else." Tubbo hadn't quite understood that for the first hour he sat there staring at it, but by seventy-five minutes he obliged his father, who'd been leafing through his worn childcare pamphlets again to try to figure out what he fucked up this time. They didn't have any more problems with food after that.

Schlatt had been lucky enough to find some mostly-intact cardboard boxes left behind the apartment complex and had dragged all of them up to the sixth floor, where he sharpened his Swiss Army Knife on the walls before cutting up a small house, complete with the fancy furniture he wouldn't be able to afford and a happy family of four. It's funny, how he used to steal dollar bills from his mother's wallet and save up for stupid shit like a cool knife and now he's pleased as punch to have a few fucking  _ boxes _ that aren't falling apart at the seams.

After playtime and lunch, it was on to the outdoors. This, too, has progressed. At first, Schlatt carried Tubbo around, taking him to the park to look at the trees, to touch the leaves, to -  _ oh God don't eat that worm what are you doing? _ Other days, it was to the mall, and they'd meander the storefronts. Tubbo learns early, too early, what "we can't afford that" means. After a while, he stops pointing or wanting, instead merely watching the colors that won't belong to him. It hurts, it  _ hurts _ Schlatt to deny over and over again, to watch the innocent baby blue fade ever-so-slightly from his son's eyes, replaced with a sadder, wise-beyond-his-years little boy blue. It's that type of change so minute only a parent could pick up on it.

They start with Schlatt carrying Tubbo. As baby blue fades to pale cornflower fades to little boy blue, so the carry fades to slow stumbling, fades to a confident walk. Soon enough, Tubbo's racing around as fast as his little legs will take him and Schlatt's looking for a place to light a quick smoke, seeing but not being seen. He's aware that the musty scent of tobacco clings to him, clings to his son, too, but there's some sort of stabbing feeling deep under his heart at the thought of letting Tubbo actually catch him with a burning cigarette.  _ It's okay, _ he tells himself,  _ if Tubbo doesn't see it, nothing's happening. _

It's always happening, pennies dropping into a money jar that's stained with salt from teardrops hitting the plastic. He'd have dollar bills in there, if only he could kick the habit, but he goes three days clean, three nights caving when someone or other of his faceless, nameless coworkers hands him a lighter and Schlatt can't do anything but join in, 'cause when he does life isn't such a fucking drag for five minutes. So he watches the pennies in the jar, fiddling with the special one in the pocket of his worn blazer. He'd gotten it appraised on the road. The guy looked at it and shrugged, said maybe fifty bucks tops since the '99 doubled die is decently common, but he'd offer sixty due to their situation. While waiting, Schlatt had spotted the same error coin on sale for two hundred. He'd held a then-tiny Tubbo, sleeping on his shoulder, with one hand as he'd flipped the scumbag off with the other, sauntering away, back into the unknown.

Now he holds that penny, looking at Tubbo curled up on the ersatz couch. He's outgrown the bassinet and this is what's left. After their daily "adventure" is naptime, which allows Schlatt to check the potpourri of ingredients in the beaten-up slow cooker and to twist the lid back shut before promptly passing out next to his son. When Tubbo wakes him up in two, three hours, they have dinner; then, they play some more. Just before bed, it's reading time. Schlatt had snapped up a pretty sweet ten-piece set of "first reader" books for three dollars at a garage sale. He should've saved two fifty and just bought the one about the bees, because it's the one Tubbo loves to hear. Every night, he asks his son which story he wants to hear, and every night, without fail, he's brought the worn, tattered, black-and-yellow covered book. They've both probably got it memorized by now, but they read it every night nevertheless, Tubbo's fingers always reaching to ruffle the bee's furry texture on each cardboard page. He asks a lot about the bees, with the questions sometimes the same, sometimes not, and Schlatt does his best to answer as many as he can. He doesn't get angry or raise his voice; he never has to.

_ How could two people as thoroughly fucked, found guilty, dragged through hell as her and him - how could they have made someone so pure and innocent and happy? _

Schlatt tucks his son in, draping his winter coat over the child before promptly stealing one last hour of sleep, then stumbling out into the flurries of snow as he heads back to the construction site, back to the minimal wage and the lack of a will to live. It's not your standard nine-to-five. Hell, it's nothing like the life he envisioned for himself, back when he was in school and had a chance. But he wouldn't trade it for the world. It's oddly perfect, to screw himself further and further into the woodwork, to realize, finally, that he is truly nothing, and Tubbo is truly his everything. Every corner he learns to cut is an accomplishment; every do-it-yourself project he can whip up instead of spending money feels worthy of a Purple Heart. (He'll settle for a warm heart, though, one that jumps with joy whenever his son mumbles an "I love you, Daddy".)

It's another of those short days and long nights, early in December, when they're walking through Walmart. It's almost Tubbo's third birthday now, and Schlatt's got no idea what to get him. He'd managed to lie his way into combining Tubbo's birthday and Christmas because they were two days apart and it was easy to say that Santa brought birthday presents for kids who were born close enough to when Jesus was. That still required one nice present and a few new clothes, though. Schlatt's keenly aware that he's poured out the penny jar to be two dollars and seventeen cents, which wasn't enough to buy a fucking box of Twinkies, much less the world that Tubbo deserved. He's growing up, too, he's around that age when he looks at other kids like him and realizes that something's fucked up 'cause Daddy doesn't have a Mommy who he loves very much or more than one pair of shoes, and the boots he has are beginning to wear at the soles they're so damn old. The crappy television set Schlatt had put up for last Christmas, complete with antenna, had been a "generous gift" from the dumpster of the fucker in charge of the company where he and Philza worked, moving them from job site to job site, further and further away from home. A pang of jealousy hits his heart again - of course Phil's got it so much easier, he's got dependable neighbors and a paid-off house and money left over from the car accident that nearly cost him his legs. Just as soon, it's replaced with a wave of guilt - Phil's his only damn friend and he's pissed that he needed three years of rehab to walk straight 'cause it  _ paid him? _ Holy fuck, he's a terrible person.

Tubbo pulls on his father's sleeve again, snapping him out of his thoughts. "Daddy, look!" He points to a bumblebee plushie, the perfect oversize for him. "It's a bee!"

Schlatt can't help but crack a sad smile, reaching up to retrieve the toy from the shelf it's on and give it to his son. As he does, he cleverly fumbles with the price tag to get a glimpse. Twenty bucks. He doesn't have twenty bucks.

They could go fountain diving again. He could make it like some sort of happy, fun,  _ normal _ thing people did, letting Tubbo fish out as many coins with him as they both could in that time between when the people stopped coming and the police started. They'd had to before, when the boss refused to pay for forty hours and said only twenty was done. He can't make that a habit, though. Tubbo's too smart. He'll catch on.

Schlatt could ask - oh, no no no. He was  _ not _ going to be asking  _ anyone _ for help raising  _ his _ kid. Philza would constantly mention Tommy, that Tommy and Tubbo could be very good friends and Schlatt, c'mon, are you  _ sure _ you don't want to stop over for dinner or a playdate or anything? And he'd always say no, because he knows how much better off they are, that there will be questions he can't answer when they get back home, if they even get back home at all, if Schlatt doesn't just up and jump into the river when he sees how much wider Tubbo smiles with them than he does with him.

So that left… what did it leave?

Oh.

Oh, okay. He could do that.

Tubbo plays with the bee, spinning it in the air and mimicking it landing on the lower shelves, buzzing as he does. Schlatt's heart breaks on exactly the same lines as it did almost three years ago, shattering on the concrete floor. He stoops down and bites his tongue. "Hey, Tubbster, it's time to go."

His son looks up to meet his gaze with those little boy blue eyes. And  _ God, _ it hurts. "Can we take Mister Bee with us?"

He shakes his head sadly. "We can't afford that," he repeats. The same mantra, every time. He's almost gotten used to the sad sigh as Tubbo hands him the plushie, replacing it on the top shelf. "Maybe if you're extra good, Santa will bring him for your birthday."

The just-snuffed light in Tubbo's demeanor reignites itself, burning brighter. "Okay! I'll be extra good!"

Schlatt can't help but crack a smile at that.  _ You can't possibly be any better than you already are. _

Santa's going to turn his leaf back over, cover it with the guilty conscience of petty larceny and pray he doesn't get caught. He's going to trade in his pom-pom hat for a worn aviator hat with the earmuffs tugged down around his horns as best they can, his sleigh for a patched-up scarf tied tight to his nose and mouth, and his factory of elves for fast fingers.

So that explains why Schlatt slides into a Walmart, alone, at 7:10 on a Monday morning, the snow piling up in crevices in his scarf and on his shoulders. He shakes it off, then walks with purpose to the toy aisle. In one swift motion, he swipes the bee from its resting place, then slides it up into his coat, sucking in his stomach as best he can. Not much, but whatever he gets, he takes. He takes a cautious look down. Seems normal enough, he presumes.

He can't just walk out like that, though. It'd look too weird, waltzing into a Walmart and buying nothing. Schlatt lets his subconscious pilot him to the kids' clothes section, then. He quickly balls up three new shirts and pants for Tubbo and shoves them deep into the pockets of his coat. Are these the first outfits he's gotten for his son that weren't yard-saled, flea-marketed, or deep-discounted? Probably. Fuck.

Okay. Now to get out. Schlatt's itching for a smoke, so he calls it a sign to get himself a pack of cigarettes. He shuffles idly over to the register, hypervigilant. Forcing his voice into an awkward vocal fry, he mumbles, "Can I get a pack of your cheapest?" The cashier raises a single eyebrow at him, but spins around to rapidly snatch, then toss a pack of Marlboros onto the counter. They're very obviously discount shit from how the M is peeling at the top left corner. Schlatt glances at the box, reaching to grab and shake it.  _ Ra-tsch. Ra-tsch. _ Yep.

"What the fuck, man," he mumbles, dropping the pack back on the counter. "Shit's half empty." Sure, he's just pocketed some fifty plus bucks in merchandise, but he's not about to let this dumb fuck shortchange him out of a smoke.

Not that he's addicted. Not that he needs it. It's just...  _ comforting, _ is what it is. Yeah. Comforting. That's what it is.

The cashier looks at the carton with the demeanor of a bored teenager who's growing increasingly pissed 'cause you won't fuck off from under his nose. He palms the box, shaking it again.  _ Ra-tsch. _ As if that would magically make it full. "Sorry, sir," he drawls out, evidently never having learned to give a shit as he replaces the fucked-up pack of Marlboros with a real one. "Five ninety-nine."

Schlatt reaches into the pocket that he's not carrying contraband in, fishing for his wallet. He's got six fifty-five. When's payday, Friday? Running the math quickly in his head, he adds that to the two seventeen, subtracts the cigarettes, calculates how few boxes of pasta are in the pantry, and arrives at a resounding  _ Fuck. _

Well, guess he's going to be mooching off his coworkers. Already, his muscles tense, deprived just from  _ thinking _ about the whole week close to cold turkey. Mentally reading down a list of assorted curse words, Schlatt eyes the box once more.  _ Do it, pussy. _

It's fucked up that he  _ would _ do it, would deck this asshat in the face and make a run for it, if not for Tubbo waiting at home, if not for the plushie bee that's honestly serving to make him look like he's at a regular weight, like he's not already skipping meals because it's either him or Schlatt that gets something and he couldn't force himself to look Tubbo in the eyes if he'd taken what he wanted from his son's plate. But Tubbo's around. And he can't.

"I'm not buying your shit product," Schlatt mumbles, pushing the words up out of his throat as he effortlessly walks off. His heart pounds faster, faster, and then he's outside but it's still hard to properly breathe, and he's only able to finally get a grip on himself halfway up the stairs to the studio apartment. He practically collapses right there, in the stairwell, checking to make sure he's got everything, and it takes him a good five minutes to drag himself up again, stumble up three more flights, and unlock the door back home. Making sure Tubbo's still asleep, Schlatt slips over to the cabinet, the high one with the penny jar, and cautiously deposits his haul before closing it.

One step. Two. Three. And then he's in the shower, rinse and repeat their daily regimen. Already, the itch to snitch burns at his fingertips. God, he needs another cigarette. Fuck, he doesn't  _ have _ another cigarette.

Schlatt stares up at the water droplets falling down on him - he feels his knees give and he bucks forward, stopping his fall by slamming his forearms on the wall and dropping his head into his hands. Nobody hears a sound, yet he cries anyway, his pain echoing in the tiny stall with nothing to validate it. He's up all night, every night, but it's okay. It's okay that he's slowly killing himself, because it's  _ him _ who's being affected, and if it's him then it's not Tubbo. Tubbo doesn't deserve this, he doesn't deserve any of this shit. He doesn't deserve a mother who took one look at him and gave him up, he doesn't deserve a father who can't even pay the goddamned bills each month, and he  _ certainly _ doesn't deserve the shit life he has, disguised only by how unnervingly good Daddy is at hiding just how fucked they are. There's no hospital pamphlet about raising a child when you're barely surviving on how little money you make and how demanding the world is that you bleed every last copper penny into its greedy hands.

Actually, scratch that. There is.

It's called  _ The Difficult Decision to Give Your Child Up for Adoption. _

But they're still hanging on. As long as they're hanging on by that thread, it's okay.

He lies to himself, pretends this is sustainable for much longer. Tubbo will be in kindergarten soon. Once he's in school, Schlatt can take a second job and make it easier on them. When he inevitably dies of a stress-induced heart attack, he can only pray that Tubbo's made it into college, gotten out of the house, and doesn't need him anymore.

It's a fucked-up dream, but Schlatt wouldn't have it any other way.

As the snow piles up and Schlatt's blazer gets thinner with every gust of wind that blows straight through it, Tubbo counts the days until Christmas by drawing a bee a day on the back of  _ Breastfeeding Is Best for You and Your Baby _ . When he runs out of space on the back, he moves to the front, the sides, and whatever else until the whole pamphlet is covered in black stripes.

"Daddy, does Santa know about Mister Bee?"

He can't help but smile at that, turning around from the slow cooker, which he's banging down to keep shut. "Santa watches all the extra good little boys and girls, kid. I think he knows."

"Does he watch Daddy too?" Those little boy blue eyes blink again.

Schlatt shakes his head. "Santa doesn't have time for old people like me."

"Oh." Tubbo goes silent to that, apparently pondering something. "He should. That's not fair."

And oh, how he wants to scoop his son up into a tight hug, explain that the world is so far from fair it's not even funny, that bad things happen to good people and good things to bad people. But Tubbo still has faith. He still believes that the police catch every criminal and throw them into the royal prisons, that the boy who helps an older lady across the street wins the lottery the next day, that families stay together for better or for worse. He doesn't know that a criminal walks next to him every step of the way, that the boy who helps the old lady gets run over right along with her, that he's been abandoned once already and maybe that's even better for him than being raised in a divided family where all they do is scream, yell, and hate.

Schlatt merely shrugs, though. He can't shatter that flimsy faith; it's the only thing keeping them both alive. "When people are older, other people get them presents, so Santa doesn't need to."

Tubbo seems to consider this for a long moment. "Does Santa like some kids more?"

"Huh?" He's caught off guard again. The kid's what, almost three? This would be the fourth winter. So yeah, three.

Then again, he can't deny that Tubbo's advanced for his age. When Philza tells him about Tommy finally learning to sit still long enough for him to read to his son, Schlatt bites his tongue and nods along. He omits how Tubbo's got the bee book practically memorized, how he's gone through the other books as well, how he's now reading three-year-old hospital pamphlets that are beginning to wear at the constantly-folded seams and asking his father what  _ pneumonia _ is. (Jesus fuck, even  _ he _ didn't know that was in one of them.) When Phil explains that Tommy's now able to tell the difference between one and two and three, Schlatt doesn't mention that Tubbo's created himself an Advent calendar of bees and counts them up each day to inform his father of how long until Santa comes.

He doesn't actually  _ talk _ much to Philza, in retrospect. He just lets himself be lectured, he supposes, lets himself be spoken to like some sort of cowardly sheep. It's nice to have a friend. He doesn't want to fuck that up like everything else.

"Santa brings some people more." Tubbo crosses his arms. "He brings people a lot of stuff on TV. He doesn't bring that much to me." A realization hits him from how his eyes widen. "Am I bad?"

"No!" Schlatt shakes his head again, giving up on the cooker for now and crossing the small living space to sit down next to his son. "He just…"

_ Fuck. _ He blinks once, twice, trying to figure out how to get out of the hole he's just dug himself into.

"Did you know Santa doesn't work at the North Pole all year?" At Tubbo's soft, sad denial, he continues. "He actually spends most of his time helping the tax people. He helps them find people who don't pay their taxes because he knows who's good and who's bad. So he knows how much money every family in Aedelis makes. If he gives someone too much or too little, they might not believe in him anymore. That's why."

It doesn't really answer Tubbo's question, but he seems satisfied all the same, returning to coloring in the stripes on today's Advent bee.

There are twenty-four bees too soon. Schlatt gets from the night of the 23rd to the morning of the 26th off, which is a nice gesture but nothing compared to the three sixty-five the boss gets. Tubbo naps on his father's stomach, the television droning on and on about the massive stock trading on the Aedelian markets, how it's going down, down, down. Schlatt's not stupid; he knows what that means from a life he used to live. All he can hope for is that the bank doesn't go bottom up and he can keep his job. If he doesn't keep his job… well, they'll have to find a way, won't they?

He doesn't have three hundred dollars and a baby whose food is in his backpack, though. He has maybe ten dollars and a young child who's already becoming aware of the fact that something's very, very wrong. But they can find a way. They always have and they always will.

Tubbo wakes him up on Christmas Day, practically bouncing off the walls in excitement. Schlatt smiles, ruffles his son's hair, tells him Santa left a present. As Tubbo clambers off his father, maneuvering expertly to one end of the worn couch-esque cushions, Schlatt rolls onto the floor, pulling himself up with a groan before striding over to the cabinet.

"Santa told me you were extra,  _ extra _ good this year, so he got you something  _ very _ special," he prefaces, looking back - his son's eyes are as wide as a turnpike, the dim illumination from the television dancing like the headlights of a car. He opens the cabinet door, hiding the bee behind it. "Bzzz…"

Tubbo's even more delighted, if that's humanly possible, and he squeaks with joy, jumping up from the cushions to run to where Schlatt's standing. His father spins on his heel, presenting the plushie with the most genuine of grins - Tubbo matches him, reaching up to grab it. He hugs the bee tightly, rubbing his cheek on the soft material. "Santa's the best!" he manages to get out between breaths.

"I told you Santa knew exactly what to get you," Schlatt chuckles, stooping down. His eyebrows raise, and he looks up, as if he's just had an idea. "I think he left you some more things too, Tubbo!" He springs up, reaching in the back of the cabinet. His fingers brush past the removed tags, meeting the new outfits, and he takes them, showing them off one by one. His son is nothing less than ecstatic as he tries on the new clothes, though it's probably mostly the bee that's making him so happy.

That's okay. That was the point, after all.

For Christmas and birthday dinner, Schlatt had tried to beat the slow cooker into submission before realizing it had broken beyond use. Then, he tried to make the stove work, but that thing hadn't been running since he was born, at least. So what he ends up doing is escorting his son outside to help him gather sticks for a very special project. When Tubbo (and, by extension, Mister Bee) comes back with small handfuls, panting and wheezing, Schlatt adds them to his collection and they start a fire with his lighter. Tubbo presses his face into the bee, shivers against his father in the light flurries as the latter takes his coat off, wrapping it around his son. He then slides the laces out of his boots, tying a can of baked potato soup to a particularly long stick, and holds it over the fire. The snowflakes pelt his arms as they wait for dinner to be served.

This isn't new to them, either. Before Schlatt snapped up the slow cooker for five dollars at a flea market, they'd had to do this more often than not. Thankfully (hopefully), Tubbo doesn't remember it, but his father does, remembers holding a small, shivering bundle of joy to his chest as he poked at the fire to get it going, to heat up a canful of snow so he could dunk some noodles into it.

After a while, the soup hits its bubbling point and Schlatt takes it off the fire, biting back a curse as he grabs the hot can and pours the soup into the bowl Tubbo holds out for him. Yeah. Christmas dinner. Happy birthday.

Tubbo makes quick work of half the bowl as his father throws snow on the fire to put it out, then relaces his boots, grabbing the bowl and downing the other half in one chug. He takes his son's hand and they head back into the building, the little boy jumping step to step, holding on tight to Mister Bee.

Tubbo never lets the plushie out of his sight. Wherever he goes, his bee goes with him, from stores to parks to bedtime stories. Schlatt tried to wash it once and quickly learned just how loud a three-year-old can wail until he's bent over, choking for air, and his father's trying to help him calm down with long and deep breaths, just like the ones he takes when he's smoking his cigarettes. They find out that if Tubbo can drink even a sip of soda, it helps a bit, and from then on, Schlatt makes sure there's at least six cans of the stuff in the house. He goes almost crazy trying to figure out why his son's got the breathing issues that seem to set on almost without warning but he can't find anything. It digs at him, hits him in the sore spot in his abdomen, that something's wrong, something he  _ doesn't know how to fix. Something he fucked up. _

It's okay. It's not okay. Well, it's good enough. They're finding their way. Right?

"Hey, Phil?"

The electrician looks over to his companion, who chews on the end of an unlit cigarette with his brow furrowed in concern. "What is it?"

Schlatt tips his head back with a sigh. It's the middle of January now, and all he can do is watch as the economy free falls. "Did you hear? The boss said he's gonna lay off a quarter of the force." He kicks his legs over the edge of the beam, an unspoken question searing between them. Yeah, statistically, there's a one-in-four chance he goes, but realistically…

Philza's pained expression, only visible for a millisecond as he turns away, confirms what Schlatt needs to know before it's even stated. "He brought all the project leaders together," the older man explains, stretching his wings to have his left wrap around his friend. "Said to write down the worst performers of the group. Didn't see who the carpentry leader put."

_ But there's a good chance it's you, _ Schlatt's paranoid consciousness fills in for him. He exhales quietly. "Nobody's hiring anymore," he mumbles, biting down hard on the Marlboro. God, his head hurts.

Philza merely nods to that, finding no better response. "Did you bring anything to eat?" he asks after a long pause, watching the younger father chew the cylindrical end of his cigarette into a flattened stub out of worry.

Schlatt grunts a somewhat negative noise to the question, looking down to his lap. "Not hungry," he mumbles. He can't be, not when it was either his meals or his smokes.

He's not  _ addicted _ , he tells himself again. It's not like it's a  _ problem _ to skip the shitty fast food sandwiches, anyways. He just… prefers the taste of nicotine. Yeah, that's it, that's all it is, really. Nothing more, nothing less.

They used to have a mirror at home. Schlatt broke it in a fit of frustration in another early morning, stared his reflection down and hated the gaunt lies it was telling. He was  _ fine. _ The beams at the workplace were just getting heavier, that's all. That's all there was to it.

Phil doesn't say anything more to that. "How's Tubbo doing?"

"He's doing well," Schlatt smiles, a little too wide to be fully real, especially as the weight of him probably losing his job, losing his house, Tubbo on the streets… It clocks into him then, like a wrecking ball to the gut, and the man grimaces.

Tubbo on the streets. He'd worked so hard, so, so hard, to remove that from the list of options. The landlord wouldn't care. He can't make up the money, there are no more night jobs, and he can't leave his son alone and unsheltered regardless. So he wouldn't have a job, for the foreseeable future, and no job means no money, and no money means no food, and no food means he has to watch his son dying slowly in his arms, and this is  _ exactly what he didn't want, he can't do it, he can't do that to him, he can't lose this, he can't, he can't _ -

Schlatt closes his eyes, pitches forward to brace himself. The world spins around him as he floats, somewhere not where he should be, and he thinks someone's talking to him, and it all hazes out for just a second before fading back in. He's being held securely by a wing that's gripping onto his sides.

" - okay? Schlatt, can you hear me?"

"Huh?" He raises a hand up to rub his eye - the world's still a little blurry, but that's normal this late at night.

"You just tipped over, man," Philza explains, gesturing with his other wing. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm  _ fine," _ Schlatt seethes. "Don't worry about me."

Phil raises an eyebrow to that. "You don't  _ seem _ like you are… can't let the boss see you like that."

He nods, solemn, and retrieves his cigarette from where it's fallen onto his lap, lighting it without hesitation. One drag. Two. Feeling better. "I'm getting fucked anyway. Not like I can do anything about it."

"What do you think you're going to do?"

"What  _ can _ I do?" he snaps back, because holy  _ fuck _ that was a  _ stupid fucking question. _ "Dance the hokey-pokey or some shit? I don't fucking know!"

The electrician sighs. "I can always make room for you two - "

"I don't need your free shit, Phil. I never have and I never fucking will." And of course that's the truth, why would he lie to himself? Yet Philza's expression is one of recoil, and Schlatt knows he's fucked it, so he shimmies down the beam before he can hear anything else.

They say you can characterize a ram by whether he runs from his problems or fights them to the very last breath. Schlatt's cut out of the first cloth and he knows it. He's never been the type to lock horns, to push and push and push even if the world beared down heavy on his shoulders. He's a runner. He's  _ weak. _

When the notice comes a few Fridays later, he's hardly surprised. Phil expresses his condolences, but that fucker doesn't know shit 'cause he's still got a fucking job, he's still got a fucking house, he's got everything. Schlatt coughs up March's rent and the landlord gives him seven days into April to get out, as if he's got shit that needs moving anyway. He spends his now-open nights trying to figure out what to do.

He can't leave Tubbo.

But at the same time, his coughing and wheezing was only getting worse. Schlatt smokes his way through the meager savings they have, dipping his hands in the mall fountains to collect enough pennies to pay for a new pack because he doesn't know what he'd do without another hit. He  _ knows _ deep down that he is  _ ruining  _ Tubbo, that he is  _ hurting _ him, and if the shards of the mirror shined back at him, he'd see nothing but a fucking  _ failure _ . A  _ failure _ of a son, a  _ failure _ of a worker, a  _ failure _ of a dad. At the same time, he can't afford an education for his son, even if he were to kick the cigarettes, even if he  _ could _ .  _ Failure _ . They can't go out on the streets again. It's too dangerous, especially since Tubbo's not a baby anymore, since he can run away, since he's older and he's aware of how fucked the world is.  _ Failure _ . And if Schlatt were caught in a crime that he'd need to commit to survive, then Tubbo would be shipped off to a foster home and fucked over.  _ Failure, a fucking failure. _

So what did that leave?

Schlatt goes back to the construction site one night, follows someone to a home that is not his own, even as he bites his tongue to stop the tears that all but perpetually cascaded down. The only time he can force them back is when he's with his son. Schlatt looks into those little boy blue eyes and he sees his whole world reflected back at him. His everything. And he runs, just like the weak ram he is. The  _ failure _ that he is.

He looks down at the note that's half-crumpled in his hand, the twentieth time, and tries to smooth it out. He gives up, again, as his pen scratches louder on the back of the fast-food wrapper.

_ Hey Phil. _

_ This is Tubbo. You finally get to meet the kid, huh? _

_ He's a little over three. Birthday December 23rd. Loves his bumblebee plushie. Doesn't cause much trouble - no allergies that I know of or anything like that. Likes to read, likes to go places, usual toddler things. He can get wheezy sometimes, but soda seems to help. _

_ I can't do it. I'm so fucking sorry I'm dumping him on you, but I can't anymore. I failed him. I fucking failed him. I can't take care of him with no job, no house, no food, nothing. He deserves better than this shit, than me. _

_ Maybe he'll get along with Tommy. Hopefully. He needs friends, he needs people to be with. _

_ I'll send you money whenever I can. You don't deserve this shit either, to have a deadbeat dad throw a kid on you like this. It's the least I can do. _

_ I can't come back to pick him up. _

_ I'm so fucking sorry. _

_ Give him the life he's supposed to have. The one I can't give him. _

Schlatt looks down at the words, tears pooling in his eyes yet again as they drop onto the wrapper. His heart beats emptily in his chest.

This is for the best.

He's running again.

_ Failure. _

He's only half in control of himself as he drags himself to the couch cushions where Tubbo's sleeping. "Hey, kid," he mumbles, squatting next to his son.

Tubbo opens his eyes, blinks once, twice, then turns to face him. "Daddy? Are you okay?"

Fuck. He's crying, isn't he? "Not really," he admits, and it's the first time he's really told the truth in so long that the words stick in his throat and he has to tear them out.

"What's wrong?"  _ Everything is wrong. _

Is he supposed to lie, just like he's used to, or to actually say what he knows is real and validate the mirror? Would Tubbo see through it? He's smart, he's too fucking smart.

Schlatt sighs. "Tubbo, do you remember me telling you about Mister Phil?" The boy shakes his head after a moment, sitting up. "Mister Phil is my friend from work. He's a very good man. He has a son, Tommy, who's around your age."

"Oh," his son mumbles.

He bites his tongue, considers his words. "You're going to be living with them for now. Daddy can't afford this place anymore and he doesn't want you living on the street. Mister Phil has agreed to take care of you until Daddy can come back." It's another lie, that Daddy's coming back. If Schlatt ever saw his son again, he'd probably have a mental breakdown on the spot because of how much better off Tubbo would look, how much happier he would be, how much Schlatt  _ fucking failed _ him. Daddy's not coming back, now or ever, and he knows that. But he can't extinguish the last of Tubbo's faith. He can't watch those little boy blue eyes swell with tears to match his own.

"Okay," Tubbo nods, even though his demeanor is overcast at best. "Daddy's coming back soon?"

"Hopefully, kid," Schlatt forces out. "But we'll have to see. Are you ready to meet Mister Phil?"

His son pauses for a second, then nods again. "Can Mister Bee come with me?"

His fake smile, wide, trying to make it seem okay, falls to the wayside, replaced by a smaller, genuine one. "Of course he can, Tubbster." A pause. "Can I have him for a minute? You can grab everything you need while I talk to him. Put everything you want to take in the backpack. Remember, you don't know when you'll be coming back."

"Okay!" Tubbo hands off the bee plushie, then scampers off to collect his possessions. Poor kid. He probably thinks this is some sort of extended sleepover. Schlatt looks the bee in its shoplifted eyes, then sets it down on the table, pulling out the two-dollar sewing kit that's saved many pieces of clothing in the past. He makes a tiny incision where the bee's heart would conceivably be, on a black stripe, then pulls out the '99 doubled die penny from his pocket. Pressing a soft kiss to its head, he slides it into the small cut, then stitches it back up. He finishes with his handiwork just as Tubbo returns.

"Mister Bee told me he's going to try to take very good care of you while Daddy's away. Can you make sure to take good care of him too?"

"Okay, Daddy!" Schlatt's heart breaks again, on exactly those same lines, falls apart on the concrete. It's all he can do to attempt to hold back how he wants to sob, how he wants to hold his son in his arms forever and maybe someday it'll  _ actually _ be okay. But he can't. He never could.

"When you meet him, please tell Mister Phil to check Mister Bee's heart, okay?"

Tubbo seems a little confused, but nods again all the same. "Okay!"

"Alright." Schlatt hands the plushie back to his son, who hugs it tighter than tight. He paces over to the loaded backpack, the same one he'd worn throughout high school, and checks the contents. It's pathetic, really, that everything Tubbo had could fit inside, even when it was clumsily shoved in like this. It's even more pathetic that he's pulling the wool over Tubbo's eyes like this, but he can't tell him. He  _ can't. _

As his son watches from his position by the door, Schlatt slides the note on the wrapper into the zipper so that it's clearly visible, zips the backpack up, then slings it over his shoulder. They walk down the five flights of stairs - it's surprisingly chilly outside for an April 7th. Maybe it's just how he feels, though.

No, Tubbo's shivering too. Schlatt exhales, sliding his coat off and wrapping it around his son, who curls into the warmth of the fabric. It's a long walk; Tubbo shouldn't be cold.

Eventually, they end up at the front door of a medium-sized house. Schlatt hums quietly to himself, walking into the woods just on the outskirts of the area and returning with a ratty box. He'd layered it with almost all of his clothes. Wasn't like he'd need them anyway.

Pulling the box to the front steps of the house, he pats a spot inside, letting Tubbo jump in. Schlatt stoops to cover his son in the ersatz blankets, then waddles a step back, satisfied with his work. He shrugs the backpack off, leaning it against the box.

"Be a good kid for Daddy, alright?" He pretends his voice isn't cracking, that he's not crying, that everything's okay, even though it so obviously isn't.

Tubbo nods, cuddling Mister Bee in the box. Schlatt straightens up, trying to force himself to go. He  _ can't _ . He's a runner and he can't even run. What a pathetic  _ failure _ .

"Daddy loves you very much, Tubbo."

"I love Daddy very much too!" And if Schlatt's heart wasn't broken already, it's now pulverized under his heel as he turns to walk away, bleeding out on the grass in front of the box his son now rests in.

_ Failure. _

_ Failure. _

_ Failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure - _

Schlatt pulls the thin fabric of his t-shirt closer around him, the tears sticking thick on his skin as he runs. With each step, black silica swirls around him, drags him back, back, back, until every movement feels hampered by walls of bricks surrounding him, every muscle screaming to fall apart.

_ \- failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure - _

He doesn't stop. He can't stop, not when everything's suffocating. Schlatt's peripherals fuzz into the inky void and he can't even notice it. His heart thumps on, pounding in his ears; his stomach ties itself into knot after knot until he's standing there with a quipu of a digestive system.

There's one thought. Only one thought. He knows what he has to do. He can't live like this. He can't live like this.

_ \- failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure - _

It's so much easier to shoplift the second time. So much easier when you just don't care.

Schlatt's knees give out just behind the Walmart; he collapses onto the store's back wall, fumbling for what he'd pocketed. His fingers shake so much that he can't get a hold of it, so he resorts to stumbling away, catching himself on tree after tree as he finds his way into the woods. Sitting on a fallen log, he finally calms the swarming whirlwind of quicksand long enough to take out what he's caught and stare at it. He's still sobbing, somehow, but he's run out of tears to cry, so he dry heaves instead.

_ \- failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure failure - _

One, two, three, four. He pours the little blue pills onto his hand, then swallows them. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Like ants to a picnic.

Schlatt is nothing. He never was anything. He is nothing and he has lost his everything.

And if there is nothing at all, what's the point? He's done for. He can't find a job, can't keep stealing to live, can't keep going on like this. The only thing he can do is run, run as far away as he can from his problems. If that means death? He'll welcome it with open arms.

The bottle gets lighter, lighter, lighter, and then it's empty and his world is spinning and it's choking him and he can't breathe he can't breathe he can't breathe and then it's dark

and then it's not.

Schlatt opens an eye.

His hair is matted down to his forehead, sticking to it with sweat. It takes a moment for his eyes to focus back in; when they do, he realizes he's in the same place he was before.

Forgotten. Unknown. Unwanted.

_ Failure. _

Can't even fucking die right, huh.

He pulls himself up, rubbing his face. Yep. He's still here. It's not his time.

"Fuck you," Schlatt mumbles to the annoyingly white pill bottle before pitching forward, the quipu in his stomach wringing itself dry of the toxins inside.

It's funny, really, that nothing can exist like this. That a  _ nothing _ can exist like this.

Schlatt isn't even twenty-one and he already has to dig two gravestones for people who he used to be.

_ Here lies a student. Here lies a father. _

_ Here lives a failure. _

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, kudos, comment, but above all: tell people about this! Boost! This is my first time writing for a larger fandom, and it'd mean the world to me, if you like the fic, to see you share it so others can enjoy it too!
> 
> Tumblr (follow for occasional updates!): @aphotic-serendipity


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